


written in the stars

by unraelated



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Horoscopes, M/M, Texting, guys ive connected the dots, hints of dorothea/ingrid, ive connected them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22076932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unraelated/pseuds/unraelated
Summary: Dimiclaude Week, day three: "Sun/Moon/Stars"Dimitri finds himself drawn to Claude, but doesn't know what to do about it. When he stumbles across Hilda doing horoscope readings for some friends, he comes to realize just how compatible he and Claude are.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 14
Kudos: 241





	written in the stars

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, thanks to the great [Asael](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asael) for helping me interpret this prompt!

There’s a commotion in the cafeteria. Dimitri isn’t sure what it’s all about, but as he draws closer he starts to recognize the huddle of bodies as Ingrid, Dorothea, Hilda, and Claude. Surely, he thinks, they can’t be up to anything good.

He only vaguely knows Dorothea from one of his previous math classes but he knows that Ingrid knows her and that they’ve been getting along well recently. He thinks ‘they’ve been getting along well’ but what he _means_ is that Ingrid has barely stopped talking about Dorothea long enough to breathe since they were assigned as lab partners in her advanced biology class.

Hilda, he knows a little more about, but only because she's commonly seen with Claude and he’s taken a great care to watch Claude over the course of the previous few months, and so he knows that Claude is close friends with her - platonic, he’s learned, though that’s obviously unimportant - and he knows that they’re both practically geniuses in their own right.

Claude is… another story. They’ve known one another for only a year or so now but Dimitri finds his gaze drawn to him, even when he’s doing something else. He knows a startling amount about him for his own standards, particularly for someone who he has rarely ever interacted with, and yet he still feels like he knows practically nothing about him at all.

It intrigues him but he tries to ignore the lingering curiosity, just like he ignores the thoughts that flit across his mind when he catches himself staring: _he got a haircut, that’s a new jacket, his shoe is untied_. He finds himself ignoring a lot of things when it comes to Claude - like how he seems to get away with breaking all the rules and how he always seems to grin when he catches Dimitri staring.

Regardless, the four of them seem to be looking at something on the table in front of Hilda, with all of them clustered around her like a gaggle of co-conspirators.

Dimitri’s brow furrows to see it. While it technically isn’t breaking any rules about student gatherings, he knows that this sort of giggling is rarely attributed to anything _good_ , and he also knows that Ingrid has a test at the end of the week that she probably should be studying for.

That is what ultimately drives him closer - not Claude catching him from the corner of his eye and flashing a smile before turning back to the table. It’s concern for his friend: Ingrid is usually the pinnacle of responsibility, but ever since meeting Dorothea she’s been starting to slip. As her friend, he should help remind her of her duties and her class obligations.

That’s all it is.

“What’s going on?” he asks once he’s wrestled with himself enough, looking toward the table as he approaches to see Hilda holding a book over a notebook with dozens of complex scribbles and drawings littering the page before it.

Hilda barely glances up at him, instead pointing at one of the thin pages of her book.

“I think it’s - Mercury?” She says, clearly not speaking to him. Ingrid offers Dimitri a fleeting smile, but she appears to be the subject of Hilda’s odd research, and so pays more attention to her than she does Dimitri. “Oh! Yeah, okay, your Mercury is in trine with your Saturn. Because your Mercury and Sun signs are both Capricorn, it means that your Saturn sign can be seen as the balance. Kind of appropriate that it’s Taurus…”

She reaches down with her pencil to draw a triangular shape between three small circles that Dimitri uses the context clues to recognize as a haphazard drawing of the solar system. It’s fraught with many eraser marks and odd lines drawing connections between the various planets, and has Ingrid’s name carefully printed below it.

Taurus? Trine? Dimitri wrinkles his brow as he vaguely recognizes the first word, but is at a complete loss for the second. He wants to speak up again and ask, but doesn’t want to try interrupting again when it didn’t seem to get anyone’s attention the first time.

“Hey Dimitri,” Claude finally says after Hilda utters a few more gibberish sentences that mean absolutely nothing to him. Dimitri looks up, pleased to have finally been noticed but feels nervous all of a sudden and he’s not sure why.

“Oh - hi. I was just wondering what you guys were talking about,” he admits, trying not to seem as shy as he suddenly feels. He glances back toward Ingrid, engrossed with Hilda’s drawings, and tries to get her attention. “We have that, uh, test at the end of the week. I thought you might want to study a bit.”

Ingrid frowns up at him and opens her mouth to speak, but Hilda cuts her off with a nonchalant wave of her arm.

“Yeah, like you guys aren’t gonna get A's already. C’mon, pull that stick out and enjoy yourself!”

Dimitri blinks while Claude snickers at him, and Ingrid’s look of dissatisfaction immediately turns apologetic but she doesn’t protest Hilda’s dismissal. He’s overstepping then.

“I… I see,” Dimitri murmurs, correcting himself, “I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Oh, don’t let us have all the fun!” comes Dorothea’s insistent tone. “C’mon, let’s do him next.”

When Dimitri looks up at her, he realizes for the first time that her hand is on Ingrid’s shoulder, perfectly painted nails digging just slightly into the silk fabric of Ingrid’s blouse. He finds himself momentarily transfixed by the sight of it, as if there’s an answer right there, right in front of him but he can’t quite reach for it.

He realizes he’s been staring, which is quite rude, and ducks his head away. When he says “I don’t know what you mean,” he doesn’t think his voice is loud enough, because Hilda is already flipping the page of her notebook over to a blank one, writing in big letters across the bottom **D-I-M-I-T-**

“I still don’t even know what you’re doing,” he protests, and Claude smiles at him. The expression is probably meant to be reassuring but all it does is twist the knot in his stomach tighter.

Hilda sighs, like waiting for Dimitri to catch on isn’t quite worth her time.

“They’re star charts,” she tells him, “you know, astrology.”

Dimitri can’t help the sudden scoff that he lets out at that - he thought that they might be doing some kind of odd research, something scientific, but _astrology_? It’s hardly worth his time - or Ingrid’s, for that matter, but he knows better than to push the issue when he's outnumbered like this.

Claude notices Dimitri’s disregard and tilts his head, reaching for Dimitri’s sleeve as if coaxing him to stay. Dimitri can’t help it: he sways closer, like… well, like a planet in orbit.

For fuck’s sake.

“I know, I know, it’s total bullshit,” Claude tells him earnestly, “but it’s just for fun. Kinda like tarot readings, you know - it’s not really that it predicts anything, but it can help give you a different perspective on stuff.”

Dimitri’s mouth is dry and so he licks his lips, looking down at the ground for a moment. “...stuff?”

“Oh, you know,” Dorothea interjects, and Dimitri looks toward her, thankful to not have to focus on Claude anymore, “just like, you take the random things that it says, you can see how it could apply to your life.”

Hilda rolls her eyes and closes the book with a _thump_ that brings a silence to the rest of the conversation. Dimitri’s name is now fully written in her notebook and she has one circle in the center of the page: the sun, presumably.

“Okay, okay, come on - when’s your birthday?” she asks him pointedly.

“December twentieth,” he replies automatically and Hilda nods, opening the book again and flipping through it.

“Saggitarius, huh? That’s… two-forty by two-seventy, ruled by Jupiter… you’re like, eighteen, right?”

He nods and Hilda starts to work at the math of his exact star map while flipping through her book. Slowly, she begins to fill the map out with the various planets, with lines drawn between some of them, but not others. Dimitri tilts his head to watch, but it’s all gibberish to him.

Dorothea giggles, threading her fingers through Ingrid’s hair while she speaks.

“Ooh, Sag’s are very strong willed. Natural leaders, very idealistic. Do you think any of that applies to you?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” Dimitri admits, a little overwhelmed, and Hilda glances back up at him before showing him the page in her book that works as an introduction to the various star signs.

“See? It says here that you’re a mutable fire sign. It tells you all sorts of stuff - things you like, things you don’t like, people you’re compatible with…”

“...compatible?” he repeats, willing his focus to stay on her, to not allow his eyes to wander.

“Yeah. Not with Capricorns like Ingrid though,” she murmurs, and Dimitri isn’t sure how to take that, if Hilda thinks that he has a thing for Ingrid, or if she's just lost in thought. Eventually, she continues.

“On, but you’re _definitely_ good with Aries. Or a Leo - like Claude!”

Dimitri opens his mouth to say something, but no sound comes out. Again, he wills himself not to look at Claude. This time he fails and peeks up at him through the fringe of his bangs and finds that Claude is smiling at him _again_ , but this time it feels more like Claude is laughing at him.

He’s sure that his cheeks are pinking, but he can’t do anything about it while Hilda continues dreamily.

“Mm, yeah… two fire signs, one mutable, one fixed… Jupiter and the sun… Dimitri, your star chart even has a trine with the sun and Venus, I just did it - see?”

She holds up her notebook but Dimitri doesn’t see. Instead, he’s frozen to the spot while Dorothea pipes up, laughter in her voice.

“Oh gosh, it’s true! Sag is the archer too, right? Claude is captain of the archery team! And Leo -”

“-Dimitri’s family crest is the lion,” Ingrid offers, and Dimitri wishes that she hadn't. Hilda chuckles and moves back to write in her notebook some more, while Claude makes an exaggerated swagger toward him.

“Well, I guess if it’s written in the stars…”

Dimitri doesn’t know what to do. Claude is taking up too much of his vision, and now he’s even _laughing_ at him along with the girls - he didn’t ask for any of this, didn’t want this to happen, he was just worried about Ingrid and now the three of the girls are talking about their signs, and Claude… Claude is making fun of him.

(Does he know? He can’t know. Nobody knows. He's been so careful…)

“Get away from me.”

Dimitri suddenly demands it, taking a pointed step back, his shoulders square. “This is stupid. How can any of you _like_ this? I thought you were smarter than that.”

The smile falls instantly from Claude’s expression and he looks hurt for a fraction of a second before his face goes artfully blank and he gives Dimitri his requested space.

“-you’re right,” he relents, swallowing hard and glancing away. “Sorry, Dimitri. We just got a little carried away.”

Dimitri’s face is burning with humiliation and he locks his jaw tight to keep from saying anything else he might regret. All he wanted was to talk to Ingrid, but if this is the kind of thing she wants to do now, then fine - _fine_.

He turns to go, but not before he hears Hilda murmur ‘ _classic Sagittarius_ ’ under her breath, like he’s just proven her point.

_

He’s always liked the library. Granted, it was one of the first places that Dimitri had ever seen Claude, and if one were to suggest that he continues to go in hopes of catching another glimpse of him, then Dimitri would deny it very quickly, but… something about that small glimmer of happiness he found while there lingers with him and so, he likes being there.

He studies there often, even though his dorm is fairly nice and it’s a bit of a walk. The brisk air is calming, he enjoys the smell of the numerous bookshelves around him, and everyone is supposed to be _quiet_.

It helps him think - though right now, thinking is the one thing he _doesn’t_ want to do.

Dimitri steals a glance upward toward Ingrid, who is writing quietly in her own notebook, paging through her textbook and copying down the relevant information. There is a small stack of flashcards to her right, a few strewn highlighters to her left. She works without speaking to him.

Dimitri’s own textbook is thusfar untouched, as is Sylvain’s - but Sylvain is long gone, having excused himself to flirt with the student librarians fifteen minutes ago, leaving only Dimitri and Ingrid at the table.

She works, ignoring him, though whether it’s pointed or not, he can’t really guess.

He regrets the way that he walked out on her and the others the previous day, but he doesn’t know how to go about saying it. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal, maybe Ingrid isn’t upset about it. After all, they did seem to be laughing at him as he stormed off, didn’t they?

Claude wasn’t laughing. He remembers that vividly, and when he thinks about the expression on Claude’s face, his heart sinks all over again.

Dimitri sighs, pushing back the fringe of his hair and staring at the cover of his closed textbook.

“...are you upset about yesterday?” he finally asks, and Ingrid pauses, delicately setting her pencil down before tilting her head back toward him.

She has to think over it for a long moment or so, but when she responds, her voice is even and measured.

“No,” she tells him honestly, but it doesn’t seem like the full story, “you overreacted, but I shouldn’t have egged them on. We can both be sorry.”

“Oh.” Dimitri looks down at his hands then, frowning. “Then I’m sorry.”

Ingrid nods, turning back to her textbook. “I’m sorry too.”

And that’s that. Dimitri has always liked that about Ingrid: she’s straightforward to a fault. You always know where you stand with her, and being able to resolve disputes like this put his anxiety at ease.

Except. Except…

“...was Claude upset?” he asks, trying not to wince at how obvious he sounds. It isn’t like he’s friends with Claude after all, so why should he care if Claude got upset at something he said?

Ingrid shrugs, finishing out a line in her notebook. She’s focused enough on her writing that she doesn’t look up at him, which is good because Dimitri thinks that he’s already flushing.

“I don’t know,” she answers, glancing at him for just a moment as she reaches for one of her highlighters. “I left after you did.”

That’s not helpful. Dimitri sighs, leaning forward on the desk and sinking his head in his arms. What does he care if Claude is mad? What does he care if Claude will never wink at him in the hallway again, smile at him with his brilliant white teeth, or give him that little two-fingered wave as they pass through the hall? What does it matter? It’s no big loss for him, he thinks. It’s not a big deal.

And yet…

“He seemed upset.” Dimitri mumbles it into the fabric of his sleeve and Ingrid hums in response, turning the page in her textbook.

“Why don’t you ask him?”

Dimitri peeks up at her from where his face is buried in his arms, his nose wrinkling at the idea. For all that Ingrid has a good head on her shoulders, this is the worst thing he’s heard yet.

“We’re not friends or anything,” he protests, “I just wanted to make sure that he’s not…”

Ingrid arches an eyebrow as she starts to draw a table in her notebook to easily compare two sets of data. Dimitri still hasn’t opened his textbook.

“I’m sure that whatever deep oblivion of anguish Claude is in right now, it’s all your fault.”

Sarcasm. Great. Dimitri glowers at her but she doesn’t notice, as involved as she is in her note taking. Ignored and sulking, Dimitri falls back to plan B.

“You know,” he says, “ever since you started spending time with Dorothea, you’ve gotten more rude.”

Ingrid huffs out an exasperated growl at that, closing her textbook a little harder than necessary and finally turning back toward him, her eyes narrowed, annoyed with the repeated interruptions to her studying.

“He _likes_ you, you idiot. So yeah, he was probably hurt that you basically shoved him away and called him a moron.”

Dimitri’s mind goes blank. He blinks at her for a moment or two while Ingrid starts packing her books, presumably to move to a part of the library where she won’t be annoyed by the boys in her class, but all Dimitri can hear are her words, over and over again: _he likes you, he likes you_.

His heart flowers in his chest, giving a thunderous beat, and he reaches for Ingrid’s pen, holding it hostage so she can’t leave quite yet while he tries to get his mouth around the words.

“Wh… how?” And he shakes his head, rephrasing: “How do you know?”

Ingrid holds her hand out for her pen, glaring at him. “Dorothea figured it out. She cornered Hilda until she admitted it. Then she told me. What do you even care? You’re not -”

Dimitri shoves the pen into her hand, cutting her off before she can finish her sentence. Ingrid stills for a moment, watching him, and it looks like she might say something else but apparently changes her mind, deciding that she wants no further part in this and shoves all of her books back in her bag before taking her leave.

Dimitri watches her go, his heart pounding in his chest before he falters back to look at his own books strewn around the table.

 _He likes you_.

Claude’s smiles, his little winks, his eagerness at being paired with him on Hilda’s stupid astrology chart - _he likes you_.

And then, of course, Dimitri shoving him away like a fool. What an idiot he’d been. And if Hilda and Dorothea and Ingrid were all in on it…

“Hey, where’d Ingrid go?” Sylvain asks in a voice far too loud for the library as he flops back into Dimitri’s peripherie, his mouth quirked up in a smirk. “I got a girl’s number. She’s majoring in _French_. You know what that means?”

“- I have to go,” Dimitri excuses himself, turning to shove his own things back into his bag.

“Wait - you don’t want to hear? She’s _blonde_ ,” Sylvain begs after him, but Dimitri is already gone.

_

The first problem: he doesn’t know where Claude’s dorm is. Sure, he can assume that he’s probably with the other first and second year students, but there are several buildings which house them and he can’t very well go knocking on all of their doors.

So, he needs to get Claude’s dorm number. From who? Ingrid seems pretty finished with this whole scenario and the only person who might know where Claude lives is Hilda.

Which brings him to problem two: he doesn’t know Hilda’s number.

But he has Dorothea’s.

They studied together once or twice for their shared math class and Dimitri has always been criminally negligent in deleting old contacts - he still has the number for his pediatric dentist somewhere in his phone.

And so, he starts scrolling through his contacts, frowning as he races by each one before finally settling on _Dorothea_. Now… what to tell her.

 _Hey_ , he starts to type, _do you have Hilda’s number? I need to ask her something_

Ominous, but ultimately, he thinks it’ll be fine. It’s only after he hits _send_ that he remembers that he’d, by proxy, insulted Dorothea over the whole horoscope thing as well, and so he hastily types out a followup: _oh, and I’m sorry about the other day._

He doesn’t have to wait very long for the response - which makes sense, as Dorothea is practically married to her phone. He opens the text excitedly, only to frown at the glowing message on his phone.

_??? who is this???_

Okay. Some people are better at deleting old contacts than others. It’s important to not lose sight of the goal here, which is… apologizing to Claude, he guesses. So he responds quickly, shaking his head as he frantically types.

_It’s Dimitri._

And then -

_dimitri who?_

He groans in frustration, staring up at the darkening sky for a moment. Goddamnit all.

 _Ingrid’s friend? You and I were in the same study group for Calc…?_ He sends it and there’s a long pause before he huffs out a sigh and sends another text. _...I’m the asshole from lunch yesterday._

 _oh,_ comes the responding text, along with a tongue-sticking out emoji. _that dimitri! why do u want Hilda’s #?_

For as long as he lives, he will never forgive Dorothea for stringing him out like this.

_I need to ask her something._

_what are u asking?_

Dimitri grits his teeth and tries to just get this conversation over with.

_I want to know where Claude lives so I can go over there and apologize for being an asshole._

_cute! :*_ , she responds. And then, finally, Dimitri gets the notification that Dorothea has shared Hilda’s contact information with him. He downloads the attachment quickly and scrolls through his phone again to the proper contact.

He decides that he’d rather not go through the stupid song and dance he’d just done with Dorothea again and so he gets right to the point when he composes his text to Hilda.

 _Hey it’s Dimitri. You know where Claude’s dorm is, right? I want to apologize for the other day. Also, I’m sorry to you too. Your star charts were…_ he struggles for the right word, before sighing, _cool._

Hilda makes him wait a lot longer than Dorothea did.

Just when Dimitri is about to give up, his phone vibrates and he opens it quickly, scanning over her response before his teeth grit and he resists the urge to throw his phone.

_oh hiya!!! suuuuure i can tell ya where claude is but first im really hungry!!! :( if u bring me a pizza ill tell u. im room 307_

Pizza.

There’s a pizza place a few blocks down, he remembers. He doesn’t go there often, but he knows it’s one of Sylvain’s preferred first date spots, and so he sighs and tucks his phone away, hefting his bookbag higher on his shoulder before making his way toward it.

The walk doesn’t take him long, but he _is_ annoyed throughout it - so annoyed that he’s lost sight of what he’s really doing all of this for. He focuses on one thing at a time: pizza for Hilda, Hilda tells him the address, and then - something to do with Claude.

It wasn’t really even _that_ big of a deal, he thinks while purchasing a thirteen inch pizza and waiting for it to be made. Who would be offended by his snapping like that? Everyone else probably forgot about it, including Claude, who probably doesn’t even like him in the first place. It’s just another joke from Hilda or even Dorothea to mess with him, he thinks, and he’s never really trusted this elementary-school game of ‘he said, she said’, so why is he so focused on Ingrid’s words now?

But he thinks about how dejected Claude was when he pushed him away and he thinks about Claude being sad in his room and he thinks, just for a fraction of a second, about Claude _wanting_ him and that’s that: he pays the cashier and takes his pizza back toward the dorms.

He’s lost in thought as he takes the elevator to the third floor, avoiding all of the other drooling college students around him trying to figure out where he’s going or how they might be able to get some food. Dimitri is focused enough on making sure he’s not jostled too much and ending all conversations that come his way that he doesn’t quite realize that the floor is populated with mostly other guys.

It doesn’t click for him when he shifts the pizza and his bookbag to free his arm, doesn’t click for him when he knocks on the door.

It _does_ slot together when Claude answers instead of Hilda, his eyes going large in surprise to see Dimitri at his door.

“...Dimitri, what are you -”

Dimitri gapes at him in turn, going shock-still in the doorway. Claude tilts his head at him, confused, but he eventually sees that Dimitri is just as clueless as he is and so he awkwardly opens the door to let Dimitri in, stepping aside and offering out his hand.

“I’m afraid I’m going to need an explanation,” he says on a slight laugh while Dimitri numbly makes his way inside.

“This… this isn’t Hilda’s place?” he finally asks, and a fraction of a second too late, he realizes the error in his words when he sees Claude’s face fall.

“No - but she did send me a text telling me that I owed her,” Claude explains, rummaging around for his phone. Quickly, he adds on - “I guess, for the pizza delivery, so... thanks?”

Dimitri shakes his head, finding a spot on the small desk to set down the box. His hands smell like pizza grease, but he quickly wipes them on his jacket and moves a little closer toward Claude, trying to clear up the confusion.

“No, I - I asked her where you live. She said that, uh - she wanted me to bring her food before she’d tell me. I was just trying to see you.”

He shouldn’t have tacked on that last sentence. It’s too… embarrassing, and Dimitri looks away for a moment and feels the heat rising to his cheeks, wishing he’d had a little more time to prepare what he wanted to say - or even think about what he wants in the first place, other than to apologize to Claude.

“Trying to see me?” Claude prompts, moving for a storage cabinet where he tugs out paper plates for eating. Dimitri hadn’t meant to invite himself over for food and doesn't want to interrupt whatever Claude was doing, but Claude hands him a plate casually, like it means nothing at all, and Dimitri stands, holding it, trying not to be awkward while Claude serves himself a slice.

Dimitri looks at the floor, wringing the plate in his hands.

“...to apologize,” he clarifies, “for yesterday.”

“Oh, that.” Claude waves it off, gesturing for Dimitri to grab some food. “I’d say you’ve more than made up for it by bringing me dinner. I was studying so much that I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

Something about Claude’s acceptance doesn’t sit right with him and Dimitri purses his lips before shaking his head, denying both the offer for him to get himself a slice and Claude’s dismissal.

“It didn’t make up for it. What I did - “ there’s a pause, and Dimitri falters, trying to work it out for himself while Claude folds his pizza slice, taking a bite with his eyes curiously on Dimitri, who is clearly struggling with himself in the middle of Claude’s dorm room.

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I was just… embarrassed, and I didn’t know what to do. I thought you were all making fun of me.”

Claude swallows his first bite of pizza and shakes his head.

“Yeah well, I was being kind of a jerk too. I didn’t realize I was making you so uncomfortable.” He shrugs and continues, moving to sit on the chair in front of his desk. “Most of the straight guys I know joke around with stuff like that a lot. I forget sometimes that it isn’t always like that.”

Straight…?

Dimitri nearly chokes on - well, nothing because he hasn’t even touched the pizza. He coughs awkwardly, turning away from Claude’s curious stare since he hasn’t… nobody has ever really just gone and _said_ something like that.

He thinks back to what Ingrid was about to say in the library, to what Claude is saying now, and thinks about Claude’s warm eyes on his as he waves at him in the hall or Claude’s joking swagger as he approached him while they were all having fun yesterday. 

Claude is openly gay. He knows this. It’s never been something he’s felt was worth commenting on because it doesn’t change how he sees him - if anything, it makes it look at him _more_ and…

“...you okay there?” Claude asks over another bite of pizza, and Dimitri nods, finding his shoes very interesting.

“Yes! I…” he lets out a long breath, and he probably shouldn’t be telling this to Claude of all people, but he’s just spent the last hour trying to find him just so he could apologize about a small offense, all because Ingrid told him that Claude likes him.

Is that true? Could it still be true, even after all of this? Dimitri swallows hard and squeezes his eyes shut tight, feeling his heart up in his throat.

“I don’t know if I am? Straight, I mean. I don’t know, I like - girls, but sometimes I see you and I think, I imagine…”

He cuts himself off there, cursing for saying too much, for saying anything at all. But why else would he be here? Why else would he come all this way?

Claude very slowly puts his pizza back down on his plate, and then his plate down on the box. He doesn’t move closer to Dimitri but he watches him with far less amusement in his eyes now, his head tilted as if evaluating what he’s seeing and trying to process what Dimitri is telling him.

“...what do you imagine?” he asks, soft and non-judgmental.

Dimitri is sure that he’s a bright red by now and he pulls his hands up to his chest, shuddering at the thought of what he’s admitting, at knowing that he’ll be admitting _more_.

“- I imagine being able to look at you. The way I want to,” he says, through a parched dry throat. Dimitri wets his lips tentatively, his heart pounding. “But I don’t want you, or anyone else to make fun of me for it.”

Claude doesn’t say anything at first and Dimitri knows he’s gone too far. He doesn’t mean to, he would rather die than try to hurt Claude or lead him on or anything, but this is what he feels and it hurts to finally get it out after holding it in so long, hiding it from even himself.

Slowly, Claude moves to stand and Dimitri doesn’t look at him, keeps the plate fisted in his hands, ruined beyond all hope of being able to use it now, and when Claude walks toward him, Dimitri can only watch the movement of his feet across the floor.

Then, suddenly, Claude’s fingertips are on his chin, softly urging him to move. He resists, closing his eyes with a shaky inhale and Claude hums, soft and light, barely a sound at all.

“You can,” Claude tells him, gentle, his thumb sliding along Dimitri’s jaw, “I won’t laugh. Look all you want. I’ll stay still for you.”

Dimitri finally gives in to Claude’s gentle nudge and allows him to tilt his chin back toward him, so that they can both watch one another. He opens his eyes, and there’s no trace of mockery in Claude’s face.

He’s beautiful.

Dimitri supposes that he has always thought so, but now, seeing him this close, so unguarded… it unfurls something in him, rekindles the same thing he felt when Ingrid told him earlier, _he likes you_ , and he’s helpless but to _look_ at him.

Claude’s eyes are the color of spring leaves, his messy hair that of a bird’s nest, and the gentle curve of his nose is so delicate that Dimitri longs to put his fingers on it and trace the way it turns up cutely at the end. His jaw is strong, stronger than one might think by looking at him, his brows scuffed on the edges. The little earring that he wears in his ear is a bright gold and well taken care of, his chin slopes elegantly and just above that, the plush curve of his mouth, and _oh_ , Dimitri wants to touch that too.

Looking at him like this feels vulnerable, more intimate than anything he’s ever done and he realizes that just as he’s been looking at Claude, Claude has been looking at him.

Dimitri’s heart pounds and he tries to say something, but anything he might want to say dies in his throat. Claude’s fingers slowly slide down his chin until he can brush a thumb gently over Dimitri’s lip and just that, the simple action of it has his nerve endings exploding, sensitive, needy, desperate for more.

He wants to kiss him.

He knows that suddenly, and at the same time, knows that he’s wanted to kiss him for awhile now. Claude doesn’t say anything though, doesn’t move, and lets Dimitri watch him for as long as he deems is necessary.

Dimitri breathes in, falling in love with the flutter of Claude’s long lashes when he blinks, the curve of his mouth in that little small smile that he can’t seem to be able to hold back.

He looks away.

“Can I…” he starts, awkward, his voice too breathy. Claude doesn’t wait for him to finish that sentence, takes a quarter step closer and drops his hand from Dimitri’s face.

“Yeah.”

Dimitri swallows thickly, his hands balled into fists at his side, the ruined paper plate falling to the ground next to him. He still wants to ask, because it’s only polite and because he wants to give Claude some sort of warning.

“...I want to kiss you,” he tells him, stealing a shy glance up toward Claude, who nods slowly, his fingers lifting again to skirt up Dimitri’s forearm, and Dimitri feels it as if Claude’s fingers were made of fire, licking up his skin and making him long for more.

He leans in and Claude tips his head up to catch his mouth, one of his hands falling to Dimitri’s wrist and gently guiding it closer until Dimitri has his hand pressed against Claude’s hip while he kisses him.

The kiss is soft and gentle and through it, Dimitri finally understands. For the first time, he knows what he wants, who he wants, how he wants it, and the sudden realization brought to him by Claude’s lips pressed against his own makes his fingers tighten on Claude’s hip, drawing him in closer and deepening the kiss.

Claude makes a soft sound against him but doesn’t pull away and his arms slide up around Dimitri’s broad shoulders to keep him close, even after Dimitri has to pull back for air.

“Well?” Claude asks, smiling his cocky smile again, but as close as they are, Dimitri can see that it doesn’t reach his eyes and instead it makes him look vulnerable. He wonders how many times Claude has smiled that smile and he’d just took it for granted. He wonders how often Claude hides like that.

He doesn’t want Claude to feel like that around him, ever again.

“I liked that,” Dimitri admits, flushing, and Claude moves to touch Dimitri’s cheek again, holding his face in his hand as his expression turns more genuine, but also more affectionate.

“Good. You’re not a bad kisser, yourself.”

Dimitri chokes on a laugh and shoves at him, this time more playful as exasperation and embarrassment cloud his thoughts. Claude laughs too, taking a step or two back and motioning toward his desk.

“Now come on, this is gonna get cold. Oh - “ and he laughs, handing Dimitri another plate to replace the one he’d twisted, “ - oh man, I can’t believe I kissed you for the first time with pizza breath.”

It’s the silliest thing to laugh about, but Dimitri finds himself joining in, taking the plate and moving to help himself, his shoulder brushing up against Claude’s, and Claude makes no move to back away.

“I didn’t notice,” Dimitri remarks, shy again while he serves himself, hesitating after he’s done, not wanting to move away from Claude, who shrugs, knocking their shoulders together.

“Well, we’ll just have to do it again after I brush my teeth,” Claude reasons logically, lifting up his pizza again, delaying taking a bite so he can finish with: “you know, so you can compare.”

Dimitri flushes, chuckling and finally moving to sit, but only so he can look at Claude again and lose himself in watching the animated way he talks, in cataloging all of his different smiles and reactions to the things he says. It’s nice to watch him. To know him. To look at him and not feel guilty when Claude catches him staring.

“I think I can agree to that,” he says, and his heart skips a beat to see the way Claude’s expression lights up.

Beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> I know nothing about astrology, and I'm very sorry for all the stuff I inevitably got wrong.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Follow me on twitter [@unraelated](https://twitter.com/unraelated) for more dimiclaude content!!


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